Posts Tagged ‘Chicken’

Anyone else remember flying in the ‘80s? Back in the days before ebooks, and ipods, and ipads. Back in the days when your entertainment for the 7 – 9 – 12 – 18 hour flight was limited to one movie that was projected on a screen at the front of the cabin, and whatever books and games you brought on board with you? Back in the days when you confirmed your flight reservation by phone, and you wanted a seat as far forward in the plane as you could get because the smoking section was at the back of the plane? Back in the days when there was no baggage limit, and you could still go up to the cockpit to talk to the pilots?

Anyone remember the food? Or, more candidly, the substances which purported to be food, but were generally so unidentifiable and inedible that if you’d claimed they were soylent green nobody would much have disagreed with you. Read the rest of this entry ?

If you’ve ever tried to cook a vintage recipe – or tried to recreate some recipe your grandmother always used to make – you’ve probably run into the problem that older recipes tend to be frustratingly short on details. For example, my grandmother’s recipe for Moravian Coffee Cake (which incidentally is (a) the best coffee cake ever, and (b) why I don’t particularly like the crumb topped coffee cakes you usually see – see below the crunchy sugary glory of a Moravian Coffee Cake)

is a little too vague on specifics for me to attempt to make it without doing some research to nail down quantities, times, and textures. It’s got the basics (flour, sugar, yeast, mashed potato), but veers into ‘here there be dragons’ territory when it comes to exactly how much flour (enough to make a stiff, but not too stiff dough), and how much butter (enough to cover tuck into indentations all over the dough).

Do you ever get intense cravings for foods you don’t normally like, or is this just me?

I got through periods where all I can think about is eating a rich eggy potato salad, or a traditional creamy cole slaw. These are dishes that I normally pass over in a buffet because I prefer my potato salads dressed with lots of mustard and vinegar, or with a pesto sauce, and my cole slaws bright and tangy with vinegar and citrus.

Similarly I will take a no-thank you helping of pasta salad when presented with it in a situation where I have to take some to be polite, and skip it entirely if etiquette permits. I don’t like mayonnaise, and I’m not particularly fond of cold pasta, and I find that even the smallest serving sits leadenly in my stomach. I have, nonetheless, been day dreaming about pasta salad for the past three weeks straight. I don’t want a bowl of spaghetti dressed with rich tomato sauce, or a plate of fettuccini tossed with decadent alfredo sauce. I don’t want buttered and salted noodles to soak up the sauce from a braised stew. I want cold pasta. Go figure. Read the rest of this entry ?

I stopped by the Stillman’s stand at the Wednesday farmer’s market on July 3rd and stared in blank astonishment at the pile of corn they had on display. Surprised, I asked how on earth they’d achieved corn in time for the 4th of July. The way that Kate Stillman muttered, ‘you have no idea what it took for us to achieve this’ left me wondering if small animals had been sacrificed on the edges of fields. Turns out it was a somewhat more prosaic method involving seeds from Germany, and hot houses, and constant constant vigilance – the guy at the stand looked exhausted just talking about it. It is possible virgin sacrifice would have been less time consuming all round, although you do then have to do something with the body. Read the rest of this entry ?